It was just another example of how differently things were done on Earth, where they’d had to fight and scrabble to surviveand rise to the top, with the losers often dying. Power struggles on the Moon had stakes, but none of them were life and death like they had been on Earth.
“Are you worried at all about this?” she asked Jordan, gesturing at the vid screen where Ken Senior was ranting about the continued dangers of the Wolf’s presence on Earth and making what sounded like a call for the Moon to go to war with the ‘dangerous crime lord.’
Jordan didn’t look up. “No.”
“He’s calling for troops to invade Earth.” She was a little aggravated at Jordan’s complete lack of attention. Wasn’t he supposed to be in charge of security for the ships?
Jordan snorted. “He has no real power. If it starts to look like things might actually heat up—despite what the Wolf has on him, the Prime, the Secondary Prime, and the Prime Commander—we’ll start to release what we have on him. I’d be surprised if the Prime lets him live for a full day once he recognizes the warning for what it is.”
Utterly ruthless.
That was the first thought that popped into Trish’s head. Jordan didn’t sound pleased by what he was saying. He didn’t sound worried. He was completely matter of fact. If it came down to it, the Wolf would not care if Ken Senior was killed, even as the Wolf fucked and sexually tortured the Minister’s son, and neither would Jordan.
Trish frowned. While she understoodwhyJordan had become so ruthless, that didn’t mean she liked it.
The reminder of his ruthlessness brought up a whole host of other feelings and thoughts that had been lurking in the back of her mind.
Killing people was wrong.
No matter that she’d felt a bit ofschadenfreudeat Ken and Lisa finding themselves in the same position Alex and Bella hadbeen in, setting a man up for death still didn’t sit right with Trish.
The frown on her face rapidly turned into a scowl.
As if sensing the change in her mood, Jordan looked up from the tomato he was slicing. “What, little girl?”
Crossing her arms over her chest and feeling rather huffy, Trish’s scowl deepened. “You don’t care at all about giving him a death sentence?”
“About as much as he does about giving the Wolf and everyone at the compound a death sentence,” Jordan said with an indifferent shrug.
While he had a point—Ken Senior was one man, while all Jordan’s friends and acquaintances, all the men and women he’d been leading and fighting alongside, lived at the compound—Trish’s ire didn’t lessen. It didn’t grow, either, since Jordan was justified in his view, but she didn’t like it. In some ways, Trish wasn’t making an argument about Ken Senior but she wasn’t ready to talk about her real issue yet.
“How does that make you better than him, then?”
“It doesn’t.” Jordan went back to slicing the tomato, unbothered.
Trish felt like jumping over the counter and grabbing up the innocent piece of fruit and smushing it in his indifferently bland face.
“Why don’t you care? Why don’t you want to be better than him?”
“I don’t care if he dies. He’s calling to harm people over a situation he didn’t care about until it involved his son. I already think I’m better than him.”
“You don’t just not care if he dies, you also don’t care about Lisa or Ken or Alex or Bella,” Trish argued hotly.
“Why should I?”
“Because!”
“Did they care about me? Or anyone else on Earth?” To her frustration, Jordan seemed more amused by their current argument than anything else. He was also more communicative than usual, but every word out of his mouth served to further infuriate her. “Or were they just here to enjoy themselves, not caring about the state of the planet they were visiting or anyone on it?”
“And what about me?”
The expression of amusement on his face dropped away, and a slight furrow appeared on his brow. “Of course I care about you. You know that.”
“You care about menow, but what about before? You kidnapped me! I wasn’t doing anything to anyone! I was just here for school and to put myself in a position to make a life for myself. Was that too selfish?”
Jordan now looked more concerned than anything else, which, incongruously, made her more upset with him.
“You can finish school. I told you I want you to finish school.”
